


Home for the Holidays

by caityjay



Series: Touch the Ground [7]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Christmas, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, M/M, Winter Solstice, Yule
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-12
Updated: 2010-12-12
Packaged: 2018-02-16 17:12:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2277981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caityjay/pseuds/caityjay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Living in New York with his husband is nice, but Aaron still gets homesick around Christmas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home for the Holidays

Aaron grinned at the chime sounding from the speakers. He maximized Skype and accepted the video call. 

"Daddy!"

"Hey, kiddo." His godson bounced on his mother's lap on the other side of the screen.

"Hello, Aaron," Lydia smiled. "How's New York?"

"Loud," he replied, "but I'm getting used to it." That was a lie, but it was beside the point right now.

"When are you coming home?" Dane piped up, the beginnings of a whine detectable in his voice.

"Soon."

"Are you coming for cookies?"

Lydia's mom was Wiccan, but their celebration of the Winter Solstice had always been nearly indistinguishable from the typical secular aspects of Christmas. Dane's Christmas holiday revolved entirely around tree and cookie decorating. And presents, of course.

"Of course I am."

"Uncle Jamie, too?"

"Who else is going to make peppermint pinwheels?"

Lydia _oof_ ed as her son bounced again. "You're getting too big for this, hon," he heard her mutter.

"Is Christmas soon?"

"Very soon. I'll be seeing you before you know it."

"Yay!"

"You gonna be ready for us, buddy?"

"Uh-huh," Dane nodded emphatically.

"Are you helping Mommy put up all the decorations?"

"Uh-huh, we got a tree! And we made snowflakes at school and me and Mommy made more and we put them in the windows and on the tree so it snowed on the tree!"

Aaron grinned. "Awesome. Did you put the lights on the tree, first?"

"Uh-huh. And Mama Tara is coming! She's gonna make a gingerbread house!"

"Oh, that'll be fun. When's she coming over?"

"Saturday night," Lydia replied. "Cutting it a bit close for Solstice, but she'll be here."

"Granted, we're cutting it even closer, I guess." They were flying in Sunday afternoon, the day before. Even less than a week out, Aaron knew that the few days he'd get to spend at home with his family would be too short. That didn't mean he'd enjoy it any less.

"Plenty of time for Christmas, though."

"True."

Dane squirmed and Lydia let him climb off her lap to run off. "Aren't you going to say goodbye?"

The six-year-old ran back onto the screen. "Bye, Daddy!"

"See you soon, kiddo."

Lydia sighed. "So. Christmas at the Callaghans'?"

"That's the plan. You, Dane and Mama; me and Jamie; Dad; Jaq, Cate, Benj; Leigh, Izzy, and I think Izzy's boyfriend."

"Isn't she engaged or something?"

"I have no idea. Isn't she, like, 19?"

Lydia shrugged.

"Yeah. Anyway, full house."

"Guess we'll have to make a lot of cookies."

Aaron grinned. "Guess so."

\--

"Nooo, Uncle Jamie, snowflakes aren't green!"

"But I like green."

While Dane and Jamie argued the particulars of sprinkles, Lydia was trying (for the fourth year in a row) to teach Aaron how to roll out the sugar cookie dough properly, and Mama Tara was constructing the foundation of a gingerbread mansion.

"Okay, just give me that," Lydia finally gave up, taking the marble rolling pin from Aaron's hands.

"I don't know why you keep trying, really," Tara opined from the other end of the table.

"It's because she has such great faith in me, Mama, which you certainly seem to lack."

"It's not that I don't have faith in you, it's that I think your talents are better spent gluing candy to things with copious amounts of icing."

"He is good at that," Jamie piped up, not glancing away from his attempt to wrench the red sugar from Dane's vise grip.

"Thanks, baby, I love you, too," Aaron responded sarcastically.

Jamie beamed up at his husband. "I love you," he sang.

Dane seized the distraction and began meticulously dumping the sugar onto an ornament.

Aaron smiled, stepping around the table and leaning down to press a kiss to his husband's lips. "Dork," he said, patting his floury hands on Jamie's freckled cheeks.

Jamie _phff_ ed and violently shook his head, sending little white clouds into the air. "Thank you, Aaron. You know flour does wonders for the complexion."

"Yep."

Aaron pulled up a chair and squeezed in beside Jamie, leaning over the partially-decorated cookies. He snagged the green sprinkles and started sprinkling them onto a reindeer.

"Dad _dy_!" Dane complained, dragging out the last syllable as he reached to try to shield the cookie from the falling sprinkles.

"What?"

"Reindeer are brown, Dad. Everybody knows that." Aaron looked up to see Jamie wearing a severe, no-nonsense expression. Dane shuffled around until he found the chocolate sprinkles and the red cinnamon decors.

"That one can be Rudolph," he said, offering the candies to his godfather, equally as serious as the redhead. 

As Aaron dutifully covered the cookie in brown sprinkles and placed the red nose, he quietly watched Jamie interact with Dane. Dane was Aaron's son in everything but blood, but Jamie had never bonded quite as closely with him. He couldn't help but smile at the easy closeness they shared now, Jamie being deliberately obtuse, forcing Dane to explain every minute detail of the very serious business that was proper cookie decorating.

"I love you," he repeated softly, slipping a hand around his husband's waist.

Jamie smiled up at him. "I love you, too, baby." 

He couldn't care less about the flour all over his shirt.


End file.
